Sandwich Daydream, Living Slowly
Today I get to work from home, which is something I almost never get to do. But we have a new policy at work now, and I’m hoping being able to sit alone in my house, doing chores in between mundane tasks in an oversized t-shirt while no one talks to me will help me feel less insane. Because I’ve been feeling pretty insane the past few weeks. I feel like there’s static cling in my brain right now. Everything out there is sticking to the organ I use to function and none of it is good. I think I need some time to cocoon. No one tells you how little space and time there is to cocoon in adulthood.
I suspect the next newsletter will be my thoughts on working from home as a concept or whatever, and I also suspect that, for me, it will feel bright and shiny and new still, since my commute to work and the office environment is most of what makes me unbearably miserable most days, in addition to it putting immense strain on the right side of my neck for some reason, so stay tuned for that.
But today, today I have something better planned for you: I want to tell you about . . . a sandwich.
You know the worst part of working in an office? The simple act of trying to feed yourself. You either spend money you shouldn’t going out to eat (if you’re close enough to anything decent and you have enough time), you bring something appetizing if you’re skilled, something unappetizing if you’re like everyone else. Or you’re like me and you forget and you eat a half-warmed chicken caesar wrap you can buy at the coffeeshop down the hall from your office. The coffee’s good, at least.
I know not everyone has a good relationship with cooking, or a good relationship with food. In this era of my life, I don’t always either, due to my own starvation of time. Food is something I love, which I think in part makes my relationship with it occasionally fraught. I don’t know how to eat just for sustenance. I want it to always be an event or a moment of excitement. But life doesn’t work that way, especially when you have issues with time and exaustion. Do I sacrifice time spent with someone else or time spent just sitting quietly to use that time to cook? Build a pile of dirty dishes in the sink that then sucks away more time from me? But when there does seem to be time, or when I don’t feel so tightly wound, I find nothing to be as soothing as cooking. It’s an act of meditation, putting something together in your kitchen and then consuming it. When you have the patience and the time, nothing feels as satisfying as biting into something that you made with your own two hands. The sustenance feels richer.
The best part about working from home? I can spend time in the kitchen. I can actually feel sustained.
Recently, when I think about lunch, I’ve been really fascinated by the sandwich as an art form. Do you know how hard it is to make a good sandwich? Hell, sometimes it’s even hard to find a good sandwich. I ate a prime rib from a fast casual place yesterday that tasted like warmed cardboard. Putting together a good sandwich is a thing of beauty, especially as a break in the middle of the day.
I have a french loaf from the grocery store, and also some focaccia in the freezer. Not sure which I’ll use yet. I also have two different types of soft rind, creamy cheeses, in addition to some gruyere. There’s salami and prosciutto and capicola, arugula from a salad I made a few days ago, caramelized and pickled onions. Maybe some honey compound butter, maybe some salt and pepper, maybe some of the peach or blueberry jams in the fridge.
I’m sure, if you’re online, you’ve seen some sort of urging or romanticization of “living slowly.” The idea is to step out of the rat race, take your time, stop rushing from task to task. It’s a nice idea, something that appeals to me as someone who is permanently frazzled and flighty. But to an extent, it’s a pipe dream. The world we’re living in is specifically designed to keep us distracted and overwhelmed, and to an extent, you have to engage with it if you want to stay alive. What else are you supposed to do to make money? To feed yourself? I can’t even imagine how one would live slowly if they had children. It seems like an absolute impossibility.
But I do think there’s something trying to live slowly, where you can. Taking a walk without your phone and not worrying how long it takes. Sitting with someone having coffee, not looking at the time. Everyone on the internet seems to think living slowly is all tied up with gardening for some reason.
For me, living slowly looks like making a sandwich, I guess.